Conservation communities
Encyclopedia
What is a conservation community?
A conservation community is a group of individuals and families living in a community who are committed to saving large parcels of land from ecological degradation. This land can be forestForest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
ed land, agricultural
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
land, ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...
land, or any other type of land that needs protecting from high-impact development.
Conservation communities are models of sustainable community development, a new approach to development which provides alternatives to conventional forms of development. They are adaptable to the needs of different regions and they use small-scale residential development to fund conservation, eliminating the need to depend on funding from private donor
Donation
A donation is a gift given by physical or legal persons, typically for charitable purposes and/or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including cash, services, new or used goods including clothing, toys, food, and vehicles...
s or government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s. This land development model is important to the environmental movements towards sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
, Green homebuilding, local food security
Food security
Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it. A household is considered food-secure when its occupants do not live in hunger or fear of starvation. According to the World Resources Institute, global per capita food production has been increasing substantially for the past...
, and responsible management of natural resource
Natural resource
Natural resources occur naturally within environments that exist relatively undisturbed by mankind, in a natural form. A natural resource is often characterized by amounts of biodiversity and geodiversity existent in various ecosystems....
s.
Some of the tools used to create conservation communities are conservation covenants, ecoforestry
Ecoforestry
Ecoforestry has been defined as selection forestry or restoration forestry. The main idea of Ecoforestry is to maintain or restore the forest to standards where the forest may still be harvested for products on a sustainable basis.. Ecoforestry is forestry that emphasizes holistic practices which...
covenants, and other forms of covenant registered to the title of the land. Covenants are a legal contract used to protect the integrity of land. Covenants help protect the ecological health of watersheds
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
(which are damaged by increased development), maintain long-term access to natural resources and associated value-added
Value added
In economics, the difference between the sale price and the production cost of a product is the value added per unit. Summing value added per unit over all units sold is total value added. Total value added is equivalent to Revenue less Outside Purchases...
opportunities, protect native plant
Native plant
Native plant is a term to describe plants endemic or naturalized to a given area in geologic time.This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area...
and animal species, and prevent climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
impacts of intense development practices. Conservation communities are developed under a standard of performance that not only minimizes their ecological footprint
Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...
on the Earth but also ensures that the development improves (or at the very least does not diminish) the existing ecological system’s performance.
The planning basis for the residential community focuses around maintaining and enhancing the ecological integrity of the land. The community, therefore, sits on the least sensitive part of the land from an ecological point of view, and is often built using low-impact infrastructure such as LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
-targeted housing.
The economy
Conservation communities can also offer the opportunity for other eco-compatible uses such as sustainable resource extraction, value-added manufacturing opportunities, organic horticultureOrganic horticulture
Organic horticulture is the science and art of growing fruits, vegetables, flowers, or ornamental plants by following the essential principles of organic agriculture in soil building and conservation, pest management, and heirloom variety preservation....
, live/work enterprises
Mixed-use development
Mixed-use development is the use of a building, set of buildings, or neighborhood for more than one purpose. Since the 1920s, zoning in some countries has required uses to be separated. However, when jobs, housing, and commercial activities are located close together, a community's transportation...
, ecotourism
Ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism...
, recreational and ecological educational opportunities.
Conservation communities can create sustainable employment opportunities for those living in the communities as well as the surrounding region. Ecotourism promotes environmental protection and support for the well-being of local community members by bringing visitors into the conservation community for educational and recreational purposes.